What a 3 yr. old can teach us

While trying to get Eli to bed tonight he started to throw a wild, raging fit. This is very uncommon for him. He usually submits happily and snuggles into bed without any protest. But tonight he refused to put pajamas on and repeatedly threw his body to the floor insisting that he did not want to go to bed. Now being the wise parents we are we immediately recognized this as an over tired little boy who should be locked away until morning. We tried shoving him in his room and closing the door. The rage grew and the kicks to the door were too much. Michael opened the door and Eli wailed,

"I want to talk to mom!!"

I told him I would talk to him if he would stop crying. He quickly tried to gain control of the deep sobs still affecting his breathing patterns and cuddled up in my lap. He kept repeating that he did not want to go to bed. He then said,

"But I like family home evening."

"Oh yeah," I replied, "what do you like about it?"

"I like the fun family activities." Eli loves doing things as a family. We had just had a simple lesson on being grateful and then drew pictures of the things we were thankful for. Eli said he was thankful for church and space and drew a picture(scribbles anyway) of a building and a meteor.

By this time Eli had ceased crying all together and I was able to have a few, quiet moments of simply holding him. He agreed to read a story and I could tell he was now ready to submit to his much-needed sleep.

We read "Ten Timid Ghosts" and then he began in earnest to reveal his fear of the bogey man being under his bed when he wakes up in the morning. I tried reassuring him that we would pray and get Heavenly Father's help to keep the bogey man away. After many minutes of answering questions such as:

'where is Heavenly Father?'

'Is Heavenly Father and Jesus real?'

'Do they live together?'

'Then why can't I see them?'

'What kind of powers do they have?'

'Is He inside of me?'

'But how can Heavenly Father keep the bogey man away because he has special powers like going flat and getting under the door?' To this I explained Heavenly Father would put a special spell around his room and the bogey man would not be able to get through.

'But that spell could kill me.'

I guess I finally made some progress because he at last felt comfortable climbing into bed. I shut the door in awe at what a moment I had just had with him. The instinct was to leave him in his room and let him cry the night out. After all he showed no signs of behaving well. I am so glad I was attune enough to realize that often we need love the most when we deserve it the least.